Organic semiconductor materials have been the subject of much research in recent years because they can be applied to a variety of organic thin-film devices, such as organic EL (electroluminescence) devices, organic transistors, organic solar cells, and light sensors. If excellent performance is to be obtained in these applications, the organic semiconductor material needs to have high charge (electron or hole) transport property. To obtain high charge transport property, it is important to use a molecule with wide π conjugation in the organic semiconductor material, for the molecular packing to be good, and to increase molecular interaction.
An example of an organic semiconductor material that affords high charge transport property is a fused ring compound in which a plurality of aromatic rings or heterocyclic rings are bonded with conjugation, and polymers of such compounds. Of these, thiophene-containing compounds that include a plurality of thiophene rings, and polymers of these compounds, are known to have high charge transport property (see Patent Document 1). As for methods for manufacturing fused ring compounds, a method in which a plurality of thiophene rings are subjected to planar crosslinking (see Non-Patent Documents 1 to 3) has been disclosed as a method for manufacturing a thiophene-containing compound, for example. A method in which a bithiophene ring is crosslinked with vinylene is also known (see Non-Patent Documents 4 and 5).    Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 2004-339516    Non-Patent Document 1: M. J. Janssen et al., “J. Org. Chem.,” 1971, Vol. 36, 1645.    Non-Patent Document 2: X. Li et al., “J. Am. Chem. Soc.,” 1998 Vol. 120, 2206.    Non-Patent Document 3: P. Coppo et al., “Chem. Commun.,” 2003, 2548.    Non-Patent Document 4: W. Archer et al., “J. Chem. Soc. Perkin Trans. 2,” 1983, 813.    Non-Patent Document 5: S. Yosida et al., “J. Org. Chem.,” 1994, Vol. 59, 3077.